Anti-sesory/general Strategy
Khaim
Join Date: 2002-06-28 Member: 841Members, NS1 Playtester, Constellation
Join Date: 2002-06-28 Member: 841Members, NS1 Playtester, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">Various Generic Strats/Basics</div> Arr...Rarely ever post in this forum, but the refusal to adapt by most commanders in 3.0/the refusal to change strategies is causing a lot of bad games and/or easy victories by aliens, so, Just keep a few things in mind here:
Also note, the <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=89657' target='_blank'>Anti-Movement Chamber and Late Game</a> topic is now complete.
This topic is broken into two major parts, general notes, and dealing with sensory chambers. The SC section is broken into 3 parts, combat, generic strategy, and overlying objectives.
<b>General Notes:</b>
- ALWAYS look for good oportunities. [For Example] If you have MT and see the aliens are all off away from their hive, hit it quick with some shotguns.
- You do NOT have to cap every res, just kill it. A lot of times forward res nodes aren't worth capping.
- Seiges are not only for hives! On a number of maps you can seige 2, 3, or sometimes even 4 res nodes down from one position, taking the aliens from say 5 nodes to 2, is a killer for them, especially early game and/or you recycle your seige base afterwards.
- Weaponry is cool and all, but work too, likewise, the reverse.
-- Don't get stuck to only spending res on weapons, or on only upgrades. Upgrades increase overall effectiveness of the team, but weapony will take care of fades and onos where upgrades won't, likewise, weaponry boosts individual effectiveness imensely, while leaving overall effectiveness unchanged. Both have their times and uses.
- LEARN TO PLAY DEFENSE WHEN NEEDED!
-- Too many commanders and marines only concentrate on heavy offense, if you have a hand on the enemy res node and/or hive wise, don't press your luck too much, lock down your holdings, tech up, slowly advance, if you can block your enemy from teching past you via either res deficiency or hive lack, capitalize on that tech block until you're ready to take them by force, most of the time the constant unstopping advance will result in a loss due to a sneaky alien taking all your nodes and/or building a hive behind your back. Likewise, if you're seiging, don't encourage your marines to attack, seige is meant to be defended, spotting can wait for a minute until you have enough energy, if time is too pressing build a couple more seiges or obs to increase Damage a second or scans available, don't send marines in to attack or you'll leave yourself open to a quick strike behind your lines.
- This game, is all about res.
-- In most situations, aliens on 1 res node, are utterly shafted, even if they have 2 hives. Knock their res down, take the safe ones for yourself, slowly push them back into their hives. Blitz strategies right into their hive have their place, but are not always effective. Taking down an alien hive with a shotty rush most times will only buy you time if they have any significant ammount of res.
- Likewise, time is key in NS.
-- Keep an eye on the clock always, you can many times head off your enemy's tactics by simply watching time. Having shotguns out by the time the first fades appear, for example, will end in a lot of dead fades, while having them appear immediately after, is many times too late, scince they will kill an important asset or such before you can react or your marines can get there.
- Marine tech is based on Time and Res, alien tech is based on Hives and Res.
-- Basicly, you want to control enemy hive and res locations, and wait them out while you reach lvl 3/3/mt/heavy defenses/JP/HA/HMG/GL/Shotties/etc.
-- Basicly, they want to take hive locations and res locations, and take you out quickly, the longer the game goes on with an even playing field location and res wise, the better chance you'll have.
- Don't only use Phases at hives, doubles, base, and seige locations!
-- In a number of situations, placing a PG on the other side of the map is extremely useful simply by cutting down on transition times from place to place, as well as offering more tactical adversity, allowing you to attack from both sides.
- Defend, Your, Base.
-- Just because most alien teams aren't smart enough/don't care enough to rush MS, doesn't mean it won't happen ever. A good MS rush can knock out almost all of your buildings before you can get a secondary obs up or beacon, an excellent rush will kill off your base entirely and end the game right there, either forcing a relocate, or attempt to beacon. (note, if your arms lab is gone, and there's anything bigger than a lerk in base or more than 3 skulks, don't bother beaconing, just relocate.)
- Relocating is god damn risky, and only sometimes worth it.
-- The farther away you relocate to the more risky it is, and the more you delay yourself in researching. However, if you do relocate, keep in mind that beacon is an extremely effective tool, popping a full team of marines into an empty room without the aliens realizing it, can result in some very easy hive takedowns and such, it also works for a good phase location.
-- Again, if you do relocate, put some damn turrets or something in your new base. Scince you can't beacon to save base easily, and your relocated location is probably at least mildly more valueable than the origional MS, it's probably worth defending too.
<b>Early Game Notes</b>
- Early gorges are a key target, take them out, and the alien infastructure starts crumbling early on. Later killing of gorges usually isn't too effective, scince it's easier for them to get res then.
- The earlier you take a position, the more time you have to fortify and act from it before fades arive.
<u><b>When Facing Sensory Aliens:</b></u>
Note: As DC Darkling just stated, MT is not a good idea against sensories, as SC's NEGATE MT within their area of affect, thus supplying not only with a lack of information for your res, but false/invalid information. Thus, MT is usually not effective. Feeling too lazy to read through this whole thing again to make sure I put that in the first time, so I'm just editing it in here.
<b>Part 1: Direct Combat</b>
- They can only heal at a Gorge or Hive(Key! ) Innate regen isn't enough to stand around and wait for usually, as it's over a minute most times for a full heal.
- They, Do, <b>Not</b>, have, Carapace.
-- Fades WILL die to shotties easily at even weapons 1, the effective health of a hive 1 fade without Carapace is only 550 health. (250 health, 150 Armor+150 armor negation) That's about 3-4 shotty shots at level 1 weapons.
- The only combat effective ability in an assault is focus.
-- Armor 1 and Welders will help negate this, as well, don't forget that even Light Armor's playing smart can stay alive 10 times longer with a 5 res welder and a couple of med packs.
What does all of this mean? Static defenses are a hell of a lot more effective against hive 1 aliens with Sensory than any other type of chamber aliens. Being unable to heal, move in quickly, or escape quickly, aliens can't attack positions effectively without onos, and a Sensory onos is relatively easily destroyed by HMGs or Shotties at weapons 2, scince, once again, they can't escape easily, and don't have a whole lot of health.
<b>Part 2: Generic Strategy</b>
- Observatories are your friend, this one is obvious.
-- Put one in each outpost, and maybe even 2 or 3 in base depending on the enemy's reliance on cloaking.
- Sensory Aliens tend to need a good deal more res, between building a sensory network and losing higher lifeforms easier on the assault they burn res quickly.
-- So kill their nodes, you have a few obs right? Scan every now and then at high-concentration node areas to see how many they have, if it's more than 3, you may begin to develop a problem, any more than 5 and you're in the "oh crap" zone.
-- Likewise, the aliens will probably pressure your nodes heavily to take them for themselves, electrify is killer, scince skulks have no chance, and sensory fades can't heal easily, making them weak enough to the point of 1 LMG marine taking them after they're done with a node. Sometimes gorges will even resort to OCing the nodes down if they lack fades or such, forcing them to burn res.
<b>Part 3: Overlying Objectives</b>
- Taking 2 hives in a sensory game can be very crucial, 1 hive sensory is Very strong early game, but later in the game, it really isn't as good as a DC or MC, especially once you start getting some shotties or HMGs fielded. Also, a second hive enables them to take a second chamber and negates many of the SC's innate weaknesses, which will probably turn the game into a match of mostly skill and res node control, in which case I would suggest HAs, or JP rushing a hive with 2-4 players and having the rest clear with HA. (expensive for both researches though, also assuming you make it to that level of tech before you lose any important assets, which can be hard at times, refer back to General Notes at the top, defend until you're ready to attack.)
- Resource and Sensory Net destruction are key. Until a Sensory is cleared from an area, you can't advance reliably, until the node is destroyed, they still gain use from the area, even if your marines pass through there constantly or are right next door.
- <u>DIVIDE AND CONQUER</u>
-- If you're going to take a hive, take the 'middle' one, or the one with the most res, whichever they don't hive. Most NS maps feature a square overlaying map, with hives in 3 corners and MS in the other, or on sides, either way, it will work the same.
-- Aliens without MCs, to put it simply, are shafted, if they cannot take an adjacent hive. Building hives are simply too hard to defend if they are far away early game, ESPECIALLY with SCs, scince fades have to make a dangerous cross-map run at already low health to heal at their hive or to find a gorge, and skulks have to transit from one side of the map to the other upon spawn to save the hive under attack, many times not even making it there until the hive is dead. In situations like this, sometimes you don't even need to try and defend the hive, scince you can just kill it each time the put it up with a well placed shotgun or phase attack or seige before it comes online, you just need to scan often to check for the hive.(needless to say, if you forget such easily, just take the hive)
-- Sometimes, however, aliens will start with said hive, in which case, you should go for the most re-intensive hive. The closer your res are togather, the easier they are to defend, the farther your enemy's are spread out, the easier they are to kill. (if they are clustered, a good seige can take them out easily, however.) This should also help you prepare for worst case scenarios of aliens taking MS and forcing a relocate, or aliens gaining 2 hives and causing a heavy weapons conflict.
...Okay', that was way too long, maybe I'll write more later, but for now, I'm going to get something to eat.
Discuss, flame, kill, stab, maim, all of that good stuff, yeah'. Go! <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
[Edit - March 9th 2005 12:29 PM EST] Edited to add in MT-Sensory information if I forgot it, clarified the first statement, and added bold to the words 'General Notes'. Also added in a small note on organization at the top.
[Edit - March 9th 2005 05:08 PM EST] Added a link to the <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=89657' target='_blank'>Anti-Movement Chamber and Late Game</a> topic...by the way, how did I manage to spell sensory 'sesory' in the topic? Damn, I need more sleep, any mod want to fix that? <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Also note, the <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=89657' target='_blank'>Anti-Movement Chamber and Late Game</a> topic is now complete.
This topic is broken into two major parts, general notes, and dealing with sensory chambers. The SC section is broken into 3 parts, combat, generic strategy, and overlying objectives.
<b>General Notes:</b>
- ALWAYS look for good oportunities. [For Example] If you have MT and see the aliens are all off away from their hive, hit it quick with some shotguns.
- You do NOT have to cap every res, just kill it. A lot of times forward res nodes aren't worth capping.
- Seiges are not only for hives! On a number of maps you can seige 2, 3, or sometimes even 4 res nodes down from one position, taking the aliens from say 5 nodes to 2, is a killer for them, especially early game and/or you recycle your seige base afterwards.
- Weaponry is cool and all, but work too, likewise, the reverse.
-- Don't get stuck to only spending res on weapons, or on only upgrades. Upgrades increase overall effectiveness of the team, but weapony will take care of fades and onos where upgrades won't, likewise, weaponry boosts individual effectiveness imensely, while leaving overall effectiveness unchanged. Both have their times and uses.
- LEARN TO PLAY DEFENSE WHEN NEEDED!
-- Too many commanders and marines only concentrate on heavy offense, if you have a hand on the enemy res node and/or hive wise, don't press your luck too much, lock down your holdings, tech up, slowly advance, if you can block your enemy from teching past you via either res deficiency or hive lack, capitalize on that tech block until you're ready to take them by force, most of the time the constant unstopping advance will result in a loss due to a sneaky alien taking all your nodes and/or building a hive behind your back. Likewise, if you're seiging, don't encourage your marines to attack, seige is meant to be defended, spotting can wait for a minute until you have enough energy, if time is too pressing build a couple more seiges or obs to increase Damage a second or scans available, don't send marines in to attack or you'll leave yourself open to a quick strike behind your lines.
- This game, is all about res.
-- In most situations, aliens on 1 res node, are utterly shafted, even if they have 2 hives. Knock their res down, take the safe ones for yourself, slowly push them back into their hives. Blitz strategies right into their hive have their place, but are not always effective. Taking down an alien hive with a shotty rush most times will only buy you time if they have any significant ammount of res.
- Likewise, time is key in NS.
-- Keep an eye on the clock always, you can many times head off your enemy's tactics by simply watching time. Having shotguns out by the time the first fades appear, for example, will end in a lot of dead fades, while having them appear immediately after, is many times too late, scince they will kill an important asset or such before you can react or your marines can get there.
- Marine tech is based on Time and Res, alien tech is based on Hives and Res.
-- Basicly, you want to control enemy hive and res locations, and wait them out while you reach lvl 3/3/mt/heavy defenses/JP/HA/HMG/GL/Shotties/etc.
-- Basicly, they want to take hive locations and res locations, and take you out quickly, the longer the game goes on with an even playing field location and res wise, the better chance you'll have.
- Don't only use Phases at hives, doubles, base, and seige locations!
-- In a number of situations, placing a PG on the other side of the map is extremely useful simply by cutting down on transition times from place to place, as well as offering more tactical adversity, allowing you to attack from both sides.
- Defend, Your, Base.
-- Just because most alien teams aren't smart enough/don't care enough to rush MS, doesn't mean it won't happen ever. A good MS rush can knock out almost all of your buildings before you can get a secondary obs up or beacon, an excellent rush will kill off your base entirely and end the game right there, either forcing a relocate, or attempt to beacon. (note, if your arms lab is gone, and there's anything bigger than a lerk in base or more than 3 skulks, don't bother beaconing, just relocate.)
- Relocating is god damn risky, and only sometimes worth it.
-- The farther away you relocate to the more risky it is, and the more you delay yourself in researching. However, if you do relocate, keep in mind that beacon is an extremely effective tool, popping a full team of marines into an empty room without the aliens realizing it, can result in some very easy hive takedowns and such, it also works for a good phase location.
-- Again, if you do relocate, put some damn turrets or something in your new base. Scince you can't beacon to save base easily, and your relocated location is probably at least mildly more valueable than the origional MS, it's probably worth defending too.
<b>Early Game Notes</b>
- Early gorges are a key target, take them out, and the alien infastructure starts crumbling early on. Later killing of gorges usually isn't too effective, scince it's easier for them to get res then.
- The earlier you take a position, the more time you have to fortify and act from it before fades arive.
<u><b>When Facing Sensory Aliens:</b></u>
Note: As DC Darkling just stated, MT is not a good idea against sensories, as SC's NEGATE MT within their area of affect, thus supplying not only with a lack of information for your res, but false/invalid information. Thus, MT is usually not effective. Feeling too lazy to read through this whole thing again to make sure I put that in the first time, so I'm just editing it in here.
<b>Part 1: Direct Combat</b>
- They can only heal at a Gorge or Hive(Key! ) Innate regen isn't enough to stand around and wait for usually, as it's over a minute most times for a full heal.
- They, Do, <b>Not</b>, have, Carapace.
-- Fades WILL die to shotties easily at even weapons 1, the effective health of a hive 1 fade without Carapace is only 550 health. (250 health, 150 Armor+150 armor negation) That's about 3-4 shotty shots at level 1 weapons.
- The only combat effective ability in an assault is focus.
-- Armor 1 and Welders will help negate this, as well, don't forget that even Light Armor's playing smart can stay alive 10 times longer with a 5 res welder and a couple of med packs.
What does all of this mean? Static defenses are a hell of a lot more effective against hive 1 aliens with Sensory than any other type of chamber aliens. Being unable to heal, move in quickly, or escape quickly, aliens can't attack positions effectively without onos, and a Sensory onos is relatively easily destroyed by HMGs or Shotties at weapons 2, scince, once again, they can't escape easily, and don't have a whole lot of health.
<b>Part 2: Generic Strategy</b>
- Observatories are your friend, this one is obvious.
-- Put one in each outpost, and maybe even 2 or 3 in base depending on the enemy's reliance on cloaking.
- Sensory Aliens tend to need a good deal more res, between building a sensory network and losing higher lifeforms easier on the assault they burn res quickly.
-- So kill their nodes, you have a few obs right? Scan every now and then at high-concentration node areas to see how many they have, if it's more than 3, you may begin to develop a problem, any more than 5 and you're in the "oh crap" zone.
-- Likewise, the aliens will probably pressure your nodes heavily to take them for themselves, electrify is killer, scince skulks have no chance, and sensory fades can't heal easily, making them weak enough to the point of 1 LMG marine taking them after they're done with a node. Sometimes gorges will even resort to OCing the nodes down if they lack fades or such, forcing them to burn res.
<b>Part 3: Overlying Objectives</b>
- Taking 2 hives in a sensory game can be very crucial, 1 hive sensory is Very strong early game, but later in the game, it really isn't as good as a DC or MC, especially once you start getting some shotties or HMGs fielded. Also, a second hive enables them to take a second chamber and negates many of the SC's innate weaknesses, which will probably turn the game into a match of mostly skill and res node control, in which case I would suggest HAs, or JP rushing a hive with 2-4 players and having the rest clear with HA. (expensive for both researches though, also assuming you make it to that level of tech before you lose any important assets, which can be hard at times, refer back to General Notes at the top, defend until you're ready to attack.)
- Resource and Sensory Net destruction are key. Until a Sensory is cleared from an area, you can't advance reliably, until the node is destroyed, they still gain use from the area, even if your marines pass through there constantly or are right next door.
- <u>DIVIDE AND CONQUER</u>
-- If you're going to take a hive, take the 'middle' one, or the one with the most res, whichever they don't hive. Most NS maps feature a square overlaying map, with hives in 3 corners and MS in the other, or on sides, either way, it will work the same.
-- Aliens without MCs, to put it simply, are shafted, if they cannot take an adjacent hive. Building hives are simply too hard to defend if they are far away early game, ESPECIALLY with SCs, scince fades have to make a dangerous cross-map run at already low health to heal at their hive or to find a gorge, and skulks have to transit from one side of the map to the other upon spawn to save the hive under attack, many times not even making it there until the hive is dead. In situations like this, sometimes you don't even need to try and defend the hive, scince you can just kill it each time the put it up with a well placed shotgun or phase attack or seige before it comes online, you just need to scan often to check for the hive.(needless to say, if you forget such easily, just take the hive)
-- Sometimes, however, aliens will start with said hive, in which case, you should go for the most re-intensive hive. The closer your res are togather, the easier they are to defend, the farther your enemy's are spread out, the easier they are to kill. (if they are clustered, a good seige can take them out easily, however.) This should also help you prepare for worst case scenarios of aliens taking MS and forcing a relocate, or aliens gaining 2 hives and causing a heavy weapons conflict.
...Okay', that was way too long, maybe I'll write more later, but for now, I'm going to get something to eat.
Discuss, flame, kill, stab, maim, all of that good stuff, yeah'. Go! <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
[Edit - March 9th 2005 12:29 PM EST] Edited to add in MT-Sensory information if I forgot it, clarified the first statement, and added bold to the words 'General Notes'. Also added in a small note on organization at the top.
[Edit - March 9th 2005 05:08 PM EST] Added a link to the <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=89657' target='_blank'>Anti-Movement Chamber and Late Game</a> topic...by the way, how did I manage to spell sensory 'sesory' in the topic? Damn, I need more sleep, any mod want to fix that? <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Comments
example?
But yes, 4 good shottie blasts and that Fade is dead. However, with Focus, they are still deadly.
example? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
generator on caged
I have started to use forwarg Pg`s much more now in 3.0. It is huge saver now when aliens can actually kill you, e.g pg in t-junction on eclipse is quite killer. Also making 2 observatories gives you allmost infinite scanning.
example? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
In the new eclipse, that little hallway just south of Horseshoe was one I had in mind, as well as the ones already named. You can take out horseshoe, power sub, and south loop there, as well as establishing a nice foothold to attack either maint hive or computer core.
Hera's Upper General cargo area is good too, you can knock out General cargo, upper processing, and holoroom, again also opening up an area to seige out or assault a hive from. (processing.)
ns_tanith's acidic solutions processing area, take the node there, clear out cargo and chemical, same advantage on attack areas as well.
ns_veil's double seige spots are always a classic as well, and I have to get back to class, because now I'm late. >.< Will list more later if you want.
Get a tad more res, upgrade to armor2, medspam and welders and you got your counter.
Reading the whole post is good, mkay'? :X
also, the MT - > shotty rush bit was an example, not a specific strategy, it is only illustrating the origional point of looking for oportunities.
--Edit--It is done now. : ) DC one tommorrow maybe.
All I have to add is that while SC does negate MT, if you have enough Res to spare (this rarely happens, but it does) it can still be a useful tool by showing you where they are trying to expand to. Just wanted to say that before anyone gets scared away from ever researching it early.
I am sorry
All I have to add is that while SC does negate MT, if you have enough Res to spare (this rarely happens, but it does) it can still be a useful tool by showing you where they are trying to expand to. Just wanted to say that before anyone gets scared away from ever researching it early. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Noted, I said "Usually", although in pubs even if you have a lot of res it can be a bad idea, scince many people don't realize that SC will negate MT, getting them killed quite easily on accident...it really all depends on the situation though, as said, karrd.
It's all good Darkling. : )